Friday, 22 August 2014

DIY Yankee Tarts.

The post I am writing today isn't really a new concept, however I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't know how to make their own Yankee Candle Tarts so I am sharing information!

If you are unfamiliar with them, this is a Yankee Tart:

I wrote a big post about Yankee Tarts and this where I explain all about burning the Tarts etc so I won't bore you with going through it all again!

I buy my Yankee Tarts on Ebay, they usually cost £11 for 10 Yankee Tarts, they usually retail at £1.50 so you're saving around £4 by using Ebay. However I saw that there was a seller who had Yankee Candle Samplers (Votives) which are 10 for £14. As the Votives usually go for £1.80, again you are saving quite a bit!

However, as well as saving money from the official site, buying Votives gives you a lot more value for money as I am going to explain!

Votives all a small version of a Yankee Candle, it doesn't come in a jar so you need a container if you want to burn one of these.

Before you start you will need your Votives, a tea towel, a kitchen knife (NOT a sharp chopping knife!) some sandwich bags, a pair of scissors and some tape.

Once out of the packaging we are going to remove the wick as we are burning these in a tart burner they don't need the wick. To do this you turn the candle upside down, run the knife around the metal disk to remove the wax. Ease the disk up with the knife so it pops away from the wax, do this carefully as with two of mine the disk came out without the wick, not a complete disaster but pretty annoying!

This is what an intact wick looks like, you can reuse them if you make your own candles, I threw mine away because I didn't have a place for them.

With the candle still upside down, you will see a hole, you need to align your knife with this hole and press firmly downwards, you may find you have to wiggle the knife around a bit. The Votive should naturally split in half, however I have to warn you that some of them wont crack cleanly in half, a couple of mine had one thin and one thick half, however it isn't too much of a big deal!

This is the Votive split in half, now having half a Votive will be fine for a lot of people who have a Tart Burner that has a big basin, however mine is really small so I will be splitting mine again into quarters. As you can see there is no difference in colour (or scent which I can verify) between the two halves.

To achieve the quarter split I simply cut the two halves into half again. However some of them didn't split and so I have 6 pieces of some of the candles. It isn't that big a deal because you can either just burn a smaller piece or add two pieces to your burner.

I then put the pieces into a sandwich bag and I cut the label off the packaging for the candle and stuck that to the bag with tape so I would know which ones were in which bag. You don't **have** to do that but I would recommend it so you can remember which your favourites are!

This is the mess of wax left over! This is why I suggest using a tea towel, as well as not wanting to accidentally scratch your table, it makes the clean up much easier if you're not having to sweep up wax,although I got it all over my rug so I think I may put a towel down next time!

This is the finished product!

I know this seems like an awful lot of effort to go to, however the money it saves is amazing. If you pay £1 for a Yankee Tart and use all of it in one go, or even split it in half you are barely saving any money. However if you split all of your Votives into 4 it is the equivalent of FORTY Yankee Tarts and so having paid £14 altogether I have saved £26 by splitting them up. So if you are frugal, spending £14 will give you Yankee scents that are going to last you for much longer and it is so easy to do!

I will be reviewing the different scents as I burn them, however at the moment I am burning Margarita Time and it smells yummy! It is pretty subtle but has a lovely limey smell that smells very summery.

So there we go, I hope that this will inspire other people to do the same thing with their Votives and get the most bang for their buck!

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About Me

Hi,
My name is Liv, I'm 27 years old and live in a quaint village in Kent. I'm currently searching for teaching assistant work. I like cute seaside towns, pastel colours, vintage hair, food, spooning and woodland themed things.